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Topic: Precursor Battleship wisdom by Valaggar Redux (Read 19846 times)
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Cyamarin
*Many bubbles*
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Midimaze!!!
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I think you're absolutely right. But it's worth taking into account that the other races--even humans, for some reason--are so stubbornly conservative in their ship design that they only have ONE kind of ship, even if (as in the case of the humans) it has some glaring weaknesses.
So, sure it's understandable that if the Precursors had two different kinds of ships, they would look different. But if you look at, say, the Spathi, and notice that they have a million ships, all of which look exactly the same, and you look at the Precursors, who as far as we've discovered have two ships, and they're WILDLY different not only in appearance but in technology (The Sa-Matra looked almost organic)...well, you have to wonder.
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Arrow
Frungy champion
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o_o
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Actually, I recognized everything on the SC2 box pretty quickly. The massive ship looked more like the Precursor tug to me than the Sa-Matra, especially with its side extensions. That front part on top could easily be a crew pod (windows?).
As far as the tiny ships go, I see an Earthling Cruiser, a Yehat Terminator, a Syreen Penetrator, a really weird looking Spathi Eluder (the ball parts aren't balls; they're flattish things that look almost like miniatures cities), and what looks like a Mmrnmhrm X-Form with a missing top-right wing. Or that might be a Vux Intruder. If it is, the wings bend down for some reason though. At any rate, they're all ships in the game, they're just painted gray/black/white, not psychadelic as in game versions tend to come.
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Nic.
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Which naturally raises the question: if you were designing a ship, and it was surrounded by a fused asteroid shell + stasis field, wouldn't it be a better idea to put the shield generators on the INSIDE of the shell, so that they're protected from attack?
I guess we know why the Precursors aren't around anymore 
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« Last Edit: February 07, 2003, 04:21:35 am by Nic. »
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creativename
Zebranky food
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Well, you could always that that due to the physics of the matter, shield generators must be on the outside of the shield they generate. That actually seems realistic, as the shield must be generated from some point within the generator.
Then the real problem becomes, why didn't they just have another set of shield generators to protect the original shield generators?? Yes, this is obviously because then we wouldn't have been able to beat the game  ...but, there are some potential explanations (for instance, you can't have two shields in close proximity to one another because the frequencies would conflict and everything would go Boom, or something). Such explanations are far-fectched, but possible.
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Culture20
Enlightened
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Thraddash Flower Child
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Perhaps the Sa-Matra resembles a predatory creature that the Precursors thought looked threatening; something aquatic (or even space-based).
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Defender
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heres some thing else to add to the madness, it took less than 10 yrs for all the precursors to disapear. question? what could do that to star faring race?: disease? war? genocide? hmm plus they just left all there goodies lying around tossed aside like old toys. better question is what would make u leave your technology behind?
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Edward Granberry
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That doesn't make much sense either. Its actually very hard to cool things in space, because there's no air to absorb the heat. You'd have to have some kind of microwave-style coolant system that transmits the heat. Thats why cooling things on the space shuttle is such a tricky business. Most of it is done with water coolant systems that just take forever. You can get cold in space, but it takes a long time to do that.
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Valaggar
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You guys are missing the point. The problem is simple: Excessive protection for their Great Trophy would be demeaning for the Ur-Quan. It is a weakness to require additional protection for your best weapon. The protection was placed there just to deter Kohr-Ah or Kzer-Za combatants in the Doctrinal Conflict to cheat by using the Sa-Matra, and it was the least protection required for that - the Ur-Quan philosophy seems to be "It is a weakness to use any more effort than required to do your job" - see how they used the Sa-Matra only in the end of the War, when it was clear that it was necessary.
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